Over the past year anecdotal evidence from media reports has suggested disproportionate levels of crime and violence occurring at Circle K stores in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Criminal events depicted by the media often took the form of individuals engaging in some type of minor criminal activity at a Circle K, and the events spiraling out of control. As a consequence of these observations, and subsequent federally sponsored research examining problem places in Glendale, Arizona, faculty and staff from the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety at Arizona State University reached out to several valley police departments and requested official data to more systematically examine this potential problem. This report presents our findings and our recommendations.

The Maricopa County Department of Public Health and the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center at Arizona State University initiated an evaluation of ASU’s Tobacco-Free Campus policy, which went into effect on August 1, 2013. The purpose of this evaluation is to assess the impacts of this policy on the ASU community and environment. This report summarizes tobacco consumption patterns, norms and perceptions surrounding tobacco use, tobacco litter on campus, and overall benefits of a tobacco-free campus both before and after policy implementation.

In 2006, the Smoke-Free Arizona Act outlawed smoking within most enclosed public spaces and places of employment primarily to reduce the exposure of individuals to harmful secondhand smoke. The purpose of the Maricopa County Smoke-Free Parks Policy Assessment is three-fold: 1) to evaluate the extent and health impact of tobacco usage in public parks; 2) analyze smoke-free parks policies that have been proposed in cities, counties, and states nationwide; and 3) to assess the feasibility of introducing and implementing similar policies in Arizona, and in Maricopa County in particular.

The purpose of this report is to provide a proof of concept for a different, alternative method for evaluating police agencies. Our method is couched in a comparative approach, which will allow agencies to compare their performance to other police agencies. This report assesses police performance through the perceptions and experiences of recently booked arrestees. By comparing the perceptions and experiences of recently booked arrestees from different jurisdictions we can begin to contextualize results and observe differences that might serve as an early warning of a problem or serve as an indicator of success.

The analysis plan and the format of this report are derived from numerous meetings held over more than an eighteen month span with the AARIN project advisory board, Maricopa County leadership, and representatives from MCSO. Following the guidance of the advisory board, the dissemination strategy for the AARIN project shifted from a single, broadly scoped annual summary report supplemented by smaller topic-specific reports into shorter, individual reports tailored to the specific needs and wants of six key county criminal justice agencies. Meetings with MCSO representatives regarding their individualized report indicated they would be most interested in a broad analysis akin to the old annual reports. Given the MCSO’s need for the broadly scoped analysis as opposed to a topically-focused and interpretive report, the report here primarily provides analyses across most of the core instrument elements, presented in tabular form, with a list of key findings and highlights.

Over the past several years, Arizona policymakers have debated a number of immigration-related crime control policies. These discussions have ranged from arguments over the wisdom of granting local law enforcement agencies the authority to arrest and prosecute illegal aliens, to enacting legislation that sanctions employers for hiring illegal aliens. The perception that illegal aliens are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime and violence in the state is at the root of many of these policy discussions. This report examines the connection between illegal aliens and crime in Maricopa County, Arizona, using data from the Arizona Arrestee Reporting Information Network.

The purpose of this report is to use data from a sample of recently booked arrestees in Maricopa County to examine the scope and nature of Maricopa County’s gang problem. In particular, this report supplements data presented in the bi-annual report on gangs conducted by the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission, which relies on official police data and their occasional white paper on gangs that relies on self-report data from school youth. We organized our analyses around six research questions: (1) what proportion of adult arrestees are involved in a gang, and what are the socio-demographic differences between those who are associated with a gang and those who are not; (2) what are the rituals associated with gang joining; (3) how do gang and non-gang arrestees differ in their experiences with crime, drug use and victimization; (4) what is the organizational structure and composition of gangs; (5) how do members socially identify with their gang; and (6) how and why do members leave their gang?

This report seeks to address the knowledge gap in understanding the relationship between combat-related conditions such as PTSD and TBI and involvement in the criminal justice system, through an examination of 1,370 recently booked arrestees in Maricopa County, Arizona. Using interview data from the Arizona Arrestee Reporting Information Network (AARIN), the report characterizes the problems and prior experiences of military veterans, and compares veteran and nonveteran arrestees along a range of demographic, background and criminal behavior measures. The overall objectives of the report are to provide an ongoing estimate of the prevalence of military veterans in the Maricopa County arrestee population and to assess the extent to which the arrested veterans differ from the larger arrestee population.

In early 2009, an Exploratory Committee was formed to investigate the potential creation of a Veterans Court in Maricopa County, Arizona. The Committee’s initial efforts have focused on examining existing Veterans Courts and determining the size and scope of the problem (i.e., the number of veterans in the county jail). This report provides an overview of information on veterans in the Maricopa County Jail System, drawing on data collected by the Arizona Arrestee Reporting Information Network (AARIN). This report is intended to assist the work of the Veterans Court Exploratory Committee.

For the 2008 AARIN study, 2,105 Maricopa County (AZ) arrestees volunteered to complete the survey instrument and to provide a valid urine specimen for testing. In addition, the arrestees responded to a series of questions related to methamphetamine use, including patterns of use, treatment, drug transactions, sales and manufacturing, and awareness of the Arizona Meth Project. Among those participants, 435 (20.7%) admitted to having used methamphetamine in the 30 days prior to arrest.